


Old Shoes and Walking in Them

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [14]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman Friendship, Minor Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 15:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Nile learns a new martial art from Andy and walks in Booker's shoes
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Kudos: 25





	Old Shoes and Walking in Them

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story takes place in my timeline after the Guard is finally all back together. you can read it as a stand alone, if you like, but it is written in my mind in context with the rest of the timeline.
> 
> Honestly, this was going to be a small little story and it turned out to be 14 pages single spaced. whoops. LOL

Nile skipped into the kitchen with an excited bounce in her step, brown eyes sweeping the room’s occupants in quick perusal. It was god awful early, around four thirty in the morning, but she was a woman on a mission and ready to get the day started. Coffee and tea cups were scattered between breakfast dishes of wentelteefjes, eggs, fruit and oatmeal. She counted the cups and their users, frowning when she only totaled four on both, finding that the person she was looking for was not to be found.

“Come and eat, Nile.” Nicky urged, sliding a plate and the wentelteefjes, Amsterdam’s version of French toast, towards an empty chair. Nicky had taken to cooking the cuisine and dishes of whatever country they were in at the time, both for improving his skills, presenting a variety to those eating, as well as giving Nile a taste of each new place they visited. She’d rarely found something that she didn’t like. Whether that was due to having to choke down MRE’s as a Marine, or as a child being grateful to have some form of food on the table when funds were tight, Nile found she wasn’t picky when it came to what the Guard ate.

“Nicky made enough to feed an army,” Joe added around a mouthful of food.

She slid into her place with a confused frown at the others. “Where’s Booker?”

“Probably still in bed,” Andy muttered into her coffee blearily. “He’s got the right idea.”

Nile shook her head. “I knocked. He didn’t answer, so I peeked in.”

Joe snorted. “Does he sleep naked and you got an eyeful? Was it that horrifying?” Andy huffed in laughter and Nicky gave his husband an eyeball of affectionate exasperation.

The youngest immortal did not find humor in the comment, instead forging ahead with her inquiry. “He wasn’t there.”

Nicky slid fruit and eggs onto her plate, pointedly pushing her to eat. “He could be out on the porch reading, _sorellina_. He fell asleep there a few nights ago.” He offered helpfully.

“He’s not there either,” Nile insisted again.

“He might have gone for a walk or something, kid,” Andy answered, unconcerned. “He doesn’t need a babysitter.”

Frustration at their lack of concern spiked. She tried to keep the impatience from her voice as something unsettling niggled at her. “He said he would take me around Amsterdam today. He always does when we’re in a new place. He promised.”

“I will go with you,” Quynh offered. “I have not seen Amsterdam in quite a while.”

“Thanks, Quynh,” Nile answered offhandedly. “But what I’m saying is I’m worried. He promised and it’s not like him to break it. And he’s been sort of…off the past few days. Distracted and withdrawn…Like when I first met you guys.” She stated the last part slowly, reluctantly, as if she feared speaking it would lend it truth. Andy’s green eyes sharped at her comment, and Nile felt a small sense of relief that she was being heard.

“He hasn’t picked up a book in days,” Andy murmured. The other’s sensed the shift in Andy and the slow, idyllic atmosphere burned away like morning mist in the sun.

“He didn’t watch the game with me last night either,” Joe sat up. “Boss?”

“Check Book’s room again, Joe.”

The dark hair man nodded. “I will look for the basics: wallet, phone, shoes and keys.”

“I will check for the car and the patio again,” Nicky added grimly, getting up and promptly leaving the table as well.

Quynh didn’t even speak. She shared a sharp look with Andy and then slipped out of the room with her unspoken instructions.

“I-I’m kind of worried, Andy,” Nile admitted. “But what if I’m being paranoid?”

Andy got up to pace the kitchen, a furrow in her brow. “No, you’re right kid. We’ve gotten comfortable with him being in a better place, we didn’t notice he went quiet again. Now looking back, he’s been withdrawing again.”

“We always go exploring in a country I’ve never been too,” Nile added. “He agreed yesterday to take me around today, but he didn’t seem as excited for it as he normally is.”

“Keys, phone, shoes and wallet are gone,” Joe reported as he returned to the kitchen. Nicky followed him in with concern setting his mouth in a firm line.

“Car is still here. He’s not outside on the patio benches.”

Nile stood as well, itching to do something but not knowing what. “Where could he be? And what do you think is wrong? He wouldn’t just dash off without reason.” Ever since their run in with Merrick, the team had been even more careful about knowing where each other was, where someone was going, and generally sticking together in groups.

Andy froze, turning to look at Joe and Nicky. “Shit. It’s September.”

Joe cursed under his breath and Nicky looked stricken, letting Nile know that the month meant something. Quynh slid into the kitchen noiselessly, sidling up next to Andy.

“There are footprints under the window. Booker sized ones.” She reported.

Andy cursed again. “Fuck. Damn immortality. Sometimes you forget time exists. Didn’t realize it was September.”

“What’s up with Booker and September,” Nile asked impatiently, eyeing the others. Her hands were firmly planted on her hips, demand visibly clear in her posture.

“It’s the anniversary of his youngest son’s death,” Nicky answered heavily.

Quynh’s eyes bounced between Andy, Joe and Nicky. “This is not the first September he has been with us and he has not disappeared like this before.”

Joe scrubbed a hand over his bearded face. “Some years he seems to be alright and it passes by quietly. Some years are worse than others and he takes it pretty rough. Damn, we should have remembered. We’re assholes.”

“Well, we remembered now. What are we going to do to help him?” Nile directed. “We don’t even know where he could be or where he is.”

Andy’s face looked like she’d swallowed something bitter. “If it’s bad enough, we know where he could be.”

Nile felt indignation at what Andy was implying. “No. He’s been doing so well. He wouldn’t.”

“Nile,” Nicky tried to soothe but the younger woman wasn’t having it. Her hackles were raised and she wasn’t going to back down.

“No. He is doing well! How can you think that?!” She gave Andy an affronted look.

“We all want him to be well, Nile,” Joe placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “But this is a difficult, traumatic part of the year for Booker. We can deal with whatever and how ever we find him, together. But we need to find him first.”

Nile felt her stomach flip uneasily, but she grasped onto his words. Find Booker, then figure out the rest. “Call Copley. We can have him trace Booker’s phone. And he can see if they overlay over bar locations in the city.”

Her tongue felt clumsily numb as she spoke the words, hoping they weren’t true. Andy immediately reached for her own phone, firing off orders in a low tone without introductory pleasantries. With a curt nod that Copley couldn’t see, she hung up. Nicky restlessly began to clear the dishes off the table, putting leftover food into the fridge and dirty dishware into the sink.

Nile folded herself in her arms, feeling as if the autumn chill from outside had snuck into the house. “What-what if he’s fallen off the wagon?”

Joe pulled her to his side in a hug, but Nile couldn’t find comfort in it at the moment.

Quynh gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s going to be alright, _em gai_. We will find him and help him however he needs.” Despite her words, everyone did little to disguise their collective worry at the situation. Minutes after the initial call, Andy’s phone vibrated, prompting them all to turn towards her as she answered.

“Talk.” She ordered. Copley’s voice was too quiet to be heard over the phone, but a sinking feeling weighed in Nile’s gut at the tightness of Andy’s features.

“Got it.” She hung up without any further discussion or comment (Nile would have to remember to send a basket or card of thanks later) and looked to the others. “Copley traced him to a bar a few miles from here.” She called back the name even as she moved to the front door.

“Wouldn’t a bar be closed after four?” Nile asked. “Last call here in Amsterdam is usually 3am on weekends.”

“It’s a night bar. It stays open later. The last call would be four.” Joe informed her, reaching for his boots by the door.

“Let’s go.” Andy ordered, shrugging into a battered leather jacket.

Everyone obtained shoes and jackets within seconds, jogging through Amsterdam’s streets together with Andy in the lead. Absently, Nile thought the sight of them must have been quite the oddity: five people jogging at an anxious clip down the street with an odd lack of athletic wear, indicating they were not in fact out for a morning jog. But Nile was firstly preoccupied with the worry of what they would find when they arrived, and none of the possibilities in her mind were good ones. Her suspicions were confirmed when they arrived to find the large front window was smashed through, glass littering the sidewalk and crunching under their feet. Yelling could be heard from the establishment, breaking the calm of the still dark morning.

Andy walked into the establishment first, as always, but Nile was fairly on her heels as a close second. Upon entering, she stopped in surprise, abrupt enough that Nicky bumped into her and backed up Joe and Quynh in a temporary bottle neck that had them penguin waddling to get around her. Heedless, Nile continued to stare in shock at the aftermath of what, no doubt, had been a huge bar fight.

It could never be said that the Guard didn’t leave extensive amount of damage in their wake, both bodily and property wise. But outside of the context of missions, Nile hadn’t seen much evidence of excessive object destruction or harm to others from her immortal family. So, the sight before her was unexpected.

The damage to the bar’s interior made for a chaotic scene. Tables were overturned, chairs were broken and glass from bottles and shattered wall mirrors alike, littered the floor. Puddles of spilled alcohol heavily saturated the air with its smell.

But the more disturbing sight was that of the handful of men that Booker had no doubt tangled with. He’d been outnumbered, she realized, when she counted six in their huddled group. And it hadn’t seemed to make a difference. Two lay dazed and moaning on the floor, cared for by a couple of their buddies, and two more was propped against the wall. All of the them were covered in a slew of cuts, bruises and scrapes that were the least of the damage. The man braced up against the wall was missing most of his teeth, and would no doubt be in need of extensive dental work. His buddy next to him boasted an obviously broken nose that was still sluggishly dripping blood as it lay crooked on his face that was already developing two black eyes.

It was the last two on the floor, tended to by their other friends, that made Nile feel sick at the sight of them. The one clutched an apparently dislocated shoulder and wailed when his friend tried and failed to clumsily shove the joint back into place. The other lay cursing and groaning a ways away with a displaced fracture in his leg that would no doubt involve other ligament and structural damage once the X-rays and MRI’s were taken.

“Booker did this?” Nile breathed, trying to control the alarm in her tone.

Joe grimly surveyed the scene as he stood next to her. “He may be the youngest of us aside from you, but like you he was trained as a soldier in his day and he’s had two hundred some years to practice. Andy is by far the best fighter of us and the rest of us are no slouches. But Booker grew up the son of a criminal and a criminal himself. He’s a brawler through and through. He just usually good at controlling it.”

Andy approached the irate bar owner upon their entry, talking in Dutch to him as the man shouted and blustered in an animated, arm waving fashion. Nile didn’t need translation to know she was asking what happened. While her Dutch was extremely poor at best, she could make out a few words and pantomimed motions to know he was talking about Booker and his fight.

Nicky walked over and quietly knelt down to offer help to the injured party and Joe followed to offer his assistance. Quynh stayed apart, drifting instead to the window to watch the street outside. With the growing distress of the bar owner, the police would be called sooner rather than later, and the men would need medical care. Which meant they needed to find Booker soon. Andy approached Nile as the man pulled a phone out of his pocket and no doubt called to alert the authorities.

“He said that the dumbasses over there are his nephew and a pack of his friends. Evidently they picked a fight with a six foot tall Frenchman and then shit hit the fan.”

“Does he know where Booker went?”

Andy shook her head. “He said after the dust cleared that he bolted out the back door.” She jutted her chin in the direction of the back of the bar.

“We need to find him,” Nile said firmly.

“Let’s go,” Andy agreed quietly. The other three joined them seamlessly as they moved towards the back door to begin their search, but fate had it that they didn’t have to go far. A long pair of denim clad legs with steed toed boots stuck out from behind the alley’s dumpster. Skirting it, they found Booker slumped against the wall, looking disheveled and exhausted. Blood decorated him, either from the other men or from his own wounds that had already healed. Her heart sank at the stench of alcohol on his clothes and the sight of a half empty bottle of vodka in his hand. He stared at the bottle, not even hearing them approach until Andy moved forward and crouched down beside him.

“Book,” she called gently. He looked up at her with blood shot eyes, half obscured by the blond hair that fell in front of his face.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Easy, Book,” Andy soothed.

“I didn’t-I didn’t drink any. I swear. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, Book. I believe you. But let me take that okay?” Andy held a hand out, her voice staying calm and gentle as if handling a skittish animal.

Booker nodded and handed it to her. Nile and Joe stepped forward and each braced him at a shoulder, hefting him to his feet. He swayed wearily, knees almost buckling before stabilizing. When he was sure he wouldn’t fall, he extracted his arms from them and shoved his hands into his pockets. His shoulders curled inward and his head bowed.

The sky was lightening around them with the sun’s approach, sirens echoed as the aforementioned authorities and medical assistance closed in. Andy’s head cocked as if judging the distance of the vehicles by their siren’s decibel. If that were at all possible, Nile figured Andy would be able to do it.

“Joe and Nile, get Booker home. We will split up so we don’t draw attention. Quynh, go with Nicky. I will meet you guys back there.”

Everyone was quick to obey, Nicky and Quynh deciding to take a long detour around and walking off with linked hands. Andy disappeared off into the direction of who-knows-where before Nile could blink.

“Come on, Booker,” she beckoned towards the street, when she noticed him lagging behind her and Joe.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he muttered at the two of them.

The frustration at the turn of events for the morning and her still reeling surprise at the destruction in the bar left Nile feeling angry.

“Apparently you do, so start walking,” she snapped unhappily. Booker gave her a sullen look and probably would have answered her back when Joe placed a gentle hand on Nile’s forearm and stepped slightly in front of Booker, heading them both off from an argument.

“Let me call a ride,” he decided quietly. While they waited in further nearby alley, Joe had Booker strip off his shirt and wear his own in an attempt to keep Booker from being extremely memorable to their driver, leaving Joe in just his zipped-up jacket. Nile pulled her hood up for both anonymity and to block out Booker, trying to deal with her own frustrations. The ride was quiet and uncomfortable, even their driver sensing Booker’s desolate mood. When they arrived, Joe went to hunt down another shirt, leaving the other two standing warily apart in the front room.

“Bast,” she finally sighed. “You’ve been doing so good. What were you thinking?!”

Booker cut her off with a curt wave of his hand. “Don’t, Nile. I don’t need you telling me off.”

Her arms folded defensively and a hip cocked to the side as if to punctuate her frustration “I wasn’t gonna tell you off, Book. I just want to know what the hell happened.”

His hands reached up to rub his eyes blearily. “Why do I have to tell you?”

Nile’s jaw set combatively. “Because I thought we were friends, dammit. Because I am worried about you. You haven’t been yourself recently.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything going on in my head, Nile!” Booker exploded at her. “You aren’t entitled to everything I’m thinking and feeling!”

His anger seemed to echo and reverberate between them, feeding her own and crumbling any emotional self-restraint she had in the moment. “Are you really stupid enough to make the same mistake twice and marinate in your grief without letting us in? Without letting _me_ in?” Her allusion to the Merrick incident was the thrown gauntlet.

His hands fisted onto his hips as he faced her, shoulders tense and anger hardening his features. “Don’t you fucking talk to me about my griefs or how I should handle it. You know nothing of the griefs I’ve suffered.”

“I’m gonna tell you how to handle it if I see you fucking it up! You think I know nothing of grief?! I lost my father!”

“It’s one man, Nile. I lost my whole family. It’s not the same.” And just as quickly, the dust settled, leaving them toe to toe and wounded.

Nile’s face had paled at his words. She’d rocked back on her heels, almost taking a step back. But she’d never been the type to back down. “Your right. No grief is ever the same. But you don’t get to tell me that my loss is less than yours.” Her brain told her his barbs were from his grief, but her heart hurt from them regardless.

“If that’s the case, then you don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my grief,” He growled.

Nile growled in frustration. “You went to a bar alone, Booker. We found you covered in alcohol. You’ve been sullen and withdrawn for days now. We know where these behaviors have led before. So, tell me why you fucking dipped your toes into the height of stupidity and flirted with sending yourself all the way back to square one? Give me one good fucking reason why you decided to leave your brain at home rather than come to your family for help?!”

“Because I didn’t want to hear them,” he raged, hands shaking as they threaded through his hair in distress as he gripped the rots in an attempt to gather himself. “For one goddamned moment I just wanted to silence the voices of my wife and sons and the guilt they were pouring into my head. So yeah, I thought about that one damned drink. Then those drunk assholes saw me fiddling with my sobriety coin and decided it’d be funny to pull a guy off the wagon. Told them to fuck off so I could mourn my family in peace. It was a mistake because they dumped their drinks on me and started saying shit about my family.”

“Those boys were assholes, but they weren’t as strong or trained as you, Booker. You fucked them up bad.” She said in disapproval.

“I saw red, Nile. They fucking asked for it. If you’d heard the shit they said-”

“Dammit all, Booker. Your pain and their antagonization doesn’t excuse your violence and pitiful attempts to feel better by throwing a punch!”

He threw his hands up. “Fuck, Nile. I don’t need you busting my balls over this.” He turned his back to her and stalked out of the room, calling over his shoulder as he did. “I’m going to my room now, if that’s allowed, mom!”

“Quit acting like a child, Booker!” She yelled back as he slammed the door to his room closed. She growled and turned away in frustration, only to find Andy standing there.

“Heard all that, did you?” Nile suddenly felt like she was the one in trouble with her mom. Her blood still ran hot from the argument, from Booker being closed off and combative and an asshole. But she also knew it was not her own shining moment.

Andy unfolded from the wall, sighing. “C’mon, kid. Let’s train. Take our minds off of it for a bit.”

Nile didn’t feel the least inclined to interact with anyone, but the physical activity sounded like something she needed to ventilate her emotions, so she followed as Andy led her to the backyard. A modest sized patch of grass had been established as their temporary training space. No matter where they stayed, Andy always designated a space for training, specifically for training Nile in combat and weaponry. The rest of the guard often made regular use of it as well, making it an often-used area of any location they lingered at.

Since her return to immortality, Andy had been doggedly intentional in training Nile to one day take on the mantle of the Guard’s leader. Nile still struggled with the idea of inheriting the legacy while being the youngest of them, but she refused to back down from the responsibility that Andy had placed upon her. Their train sessions had become a staple of their time together and she’d quickly grown to love it. The intellectual and physical challenge already roused the Marine in her to push her limits, and she’d enjoyed getting to know Andy better. She imagined that this is what it would be like to have an older sister: competition, annoyance, affection and camaraderie in equal measure.

Once on the grass, Nile bent to untie her shoes as they often sparred barefoot, only to have Andy stop her. “Those stay on for what we are doing today.”

“What are we doing today?”

“Savate. Ever heard of it?”

Nile frowned, retying her shoe and standing upright. “Not really.”

“It’s a blend of a kicking art called Choussan and a mix of boxing and street fighting to make a uniquely French style kickboxing.” Andy reached into a metal storage unit on the side of the house and removed a pair of hand wraps, tossing one to Nile. The sat in the grass and began to wrap their hands with efficiency.

“Of course, it’s French,” Nile griped and rolled her eyes, still upset about the fight. “Is there a kick that specializes in being a pain in the ass? ‘Cause Booker has that one down.”

Andy continued her instruction as if Nile hadn’t spoken. “Savate translates into ‘old shoe’ which is befitting since one wears shoes with reinforced heels and toes, like in wrestling. Savate developed from a competitive game called Chausson that sailors and dock workers from Marseille created. Marseille is the oldest city in France, based on the Mediterranean coast. It’s a city of seaside ports and docks, diverse peoples bustling in and out, with constant traffic of travelers and immigrants and workers. It wasn’t the calmest of places to exist and it had its shady alleys and rough streets.”

Nile raised a brow in observation. “Booker was born in Marseille.”

Andy nodded and grinned. “The goal of the game was to kick your opponent until someone hit the deck. Simple. Straightforward. Violent. Alleviated hours of boredom at sea. My kind of game. It was named after the felt shoes that sailors wore on the ship decks so they wouldn’t slip. Eventually it became useful in protecting one’s self from the gangs and rough parts of town.”

Nile nodded. “So, when did it become Savate?”

“In the early eighteen thirties, around the time Booker was a new immortal, a man named Michele Casseaux began a Savate school that blended Chausson and street fighting from Paris. He used to go start brawls and street fights to test his Savate theory. His student, Charles LeCour, added English boxing into it. Thus, it all fused together to create Savate.”

Andy stripped off her jacket and stretched her neck to the sides, making them pop audibly before rolling her shoulders to loosen them. “What you saw at the bar was the result of a proficient Savate user.”

“I thought Booker specialized in Jiujitsu.” Nile pointed out. She followed Andy’s lead, both of them moving through dynamic warm ups and stretches to loosen their muscles.

“He does. But what you saw in the bar was all brawling and Book learned that in the streets of his hometown. France has always been a country filled with riots, uprisings and revolutions. On top of Marseille being centuries old and a port city, many flocked there for work and survival. Its streets were dangerous and one had to know how to hold their own. Add his father’s criminal work, his own, plus jail time and getting forced into the army, and you have a man shaped and hardened by the streets he grew up in.”

Nile wasn’t quite in the mood to feel sorry for Booker just yet. So she turned to face Andy, squaring her shoulders and raising her guard defensively. “So, Savate. Let’s see some of it.”

“It’s got the staples of most kick boxing arts: jabs, crosses hooks, upper cuts from the English boxing.” She demonstrated each, not hesitating to make contact enough that Nile moved to defend and parry each with ease. “Savate shines when it comes to its kicking techniques. You kick just as much as you punch, if not more. Again, it has your basics: front kick, round house, sidekicks and back kicks.” She demonstrated each kick with precision, the blows stinging even as Nile checked and parried.

“It’s feature kicks are things like the Fouette, the whip kick.” With a twist of her hips, Andy pivoted on her front leg and projected her knee forward. At the last second, her foot snapped over the knee, driving into Nile hard enough to send her reeling into the grass.

“Shit.” Nile commented, finding her feet.

“Or the Chasse Bas. Come at me,” Andy beckoned her forward. The moment Nile took an advancing step towards her, Andy raised her knee and aimed it forward, propelling with her hips to shove the heel of her boot straight into Nile’s knee. She felt a snap and immediate pain as she collapsed, and the mystery of how the man at the bar broke his leg was solved.

“Fuck!” She shouted as she collapsed.

Andy knelt over her as she healed. “My foot accelerates up to twenty-one miles per hour in a third of a second. Bruce Lee loved that move.”

“I can see why,” Nile gritted through the last of the pain and then stood to shake her leg of the lingering stinging. The moment she stood, Andy’s leg swept her feet out from under her and she fell hard.

“The Balayage, or sweep,” she added after Nile hit the ground again.

“Noted,” she groaned. Andy offered her a hand that she took warily.

“Savate has been described as fencing with your feet. And with any fencing, there is an art and strategy to it. Now don’t get me wrong, Savate is deadly and destructive, especially without the limits and ruleset you find in the sports side of it. But it’s not all devastating powerhouse moves and fancy flashings of pretty kicks. It wears away and looks for an opening. It’s a calculating and patient art, efficient it’s execution.” Her tone was pointed, heavy with meaning.

Nile raised a brow. “Trying to tell me something, Andy?”

“I’m saying, that being strategic in your approach and a bit calculated ain’t a bad thing, kid. In any situation. Sometime’s it’s good to go all out, no holds barred. But some situations can need more nuance and strategizing than that.”

Nile winced, knowing that Andy was talking about her approach with Booker. Now that her temper had calmed, she was willing to begrudgingly admit that she hadn’t handled the situation with as patience and discernment as she would have liked.

“I fucked up,” she sighed in frustration.

Andy smiled gently. “You sometimes will. Booker is loyal as they come and it’s why he internalizes a lot. He refuses to be vulnerable so he won’t be a burden to those around him. You have to work him open like a stubborn sea shelled creature. Push too hard, even about things you are right to push on, pry him open without finesse, and he will go underground. He will be obliging and agreeable on the surface, but emotionally and mentally will be a different story.”

“You’re really helping with the mounting regret and guilt I feel,” Nile responded sarcastically. “How do I fix it?”

Andy shrugged. “Let it be for a bit. You think about how you would have done it differently and where you will take it from here. Book won’t ignore you forever.”

“That’s good to hear since we have that kind of time,” she answered drily.

Andy gestured at her with a wrapped hand. “Come on. Let’s see your fouetté.”

Nile’s leg lashed out, striking Andy in the thigh. The other woman shook her head. “Turn your hips more. Whip out that lower leg at the last second.”

Nile nodded and kicked out again, this time feeling the acceleration of her knee as her hips turned to give her momentum. Andy nodded in approval at the impact.

“Good. A few more of those and then we move on to timing your Chasse Bas.”

\- - -

Hours later, Nile lay gasping and exhausted on the grass, waiting for her ribs to knit back together after the kick Andy had aimed at her liver. When the sunshine above her was interrupted by a shadow, she opened her eyes and looked up to find Booker standing over her.

“The snap of your leg still needs work and you need to emphasize that contact with your toe and heel. Some martial arts train it out of you for fear of breaking your toe, but the reinforced portion of the shoe protects you and does a lot of the damage for you.”

Nile sat up hesitantly, catching Andy watching the two of them with a look on her face she couldn’t quite interpret. Then with a mysterious smile, she slipped through the back door, leaving Nile and Booker alone. Not quite ready to face him, she focused on tightening her shoe laces, giving her hands a task to accomplish as she waited for him to speak. He sat down next to her on the grass with a sigh, his large frame folding up next to hers.

“I’m sorry, Nile.” He said quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled. Shouldn’t have said that shit I said about your father. Shouldn’t have been at the bar in the first place. I know I should have come to you all when i was feeling low. I should have come to _you_.”

Rather than bask in all the things she’d been right about, Nile thought about what Andy had said about doing things differently. “I should have been kinder. I should have asked you days ago when I noticed something was wrong. I know how grief can twist you up and make you feel and say things you don’t mean and I should have remembered that today. I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“I was an ass. I deserved it,” he muttered with a shrug.

She glanced over at him and studied him as he looked up at the blue sky, dotted with occasional wisps of clouds. She thought about the moment she’d found out he was gone. That he’d been hurting and hadn’t said anything.

“It hurt that you didn’t come to me,” she admitted quietly. “I was scared that this would be the first step towards you slipping away again. I don’t want you to fall behind, Bast. And I don’t want to lose you to grief.” 

Carefully, slowly, she leaned so that her shoulder braced itself against his. A peace offering to show she wasn’t mad any more, and a supplication for his forgiveness. He turned to look at her with those blue eyes that she thought more arresting than the sky he’d been looking at.

“I didn’t want to get angry at you. And I knew you were right about the whole thing.” He leaned into her, giving weight back in exchange. “But I was embarrassed and ashamed of what you saw in that bar…in that alley. Out of everyone, you’ve never had a reason to exile me or send me away. I feared I’d given you that reason.”

“Even if you had taken a drink at that bar, it wouldn’t have been reason enough.” She told him firmly. The relief in his eyes affirmed that her words had been the right ones. She’d been so worried about this moment being a downhill slide for him, that she’d missed the fact that he was fearing the exact same thing. Shifting so that her back was to his, she braced up against his frame. “Tell me about the last few days…if you want to.”

She felt his shoulders expand with a fortifying breath. “I miss my family. Lisette was my wife. It was arranged at first, but we grew to love each other. My sons were my light. I loved them all so much. I loved them so much I would do anything to keep them fed and clothed and happy. Even illegal things. I fell into forging and other illegal activities until I got caught. I was given a choice: join Napoleon’s army or the death penalty. Either one would break my family’s heart and would end in my death, so I chose the one that prolonged the latter for a while. I remember regretting my choice during the campaign once we reached Russia. Enough to try to desert the army before getting caught. They hung me.”

“That’s how you found out about your immortality,” Nile confirmed. She felt him nod.

“I hung there for three days, suffocating over and over as quietly as possible until they moved on and I got the hell out of there. When I returned, Lisette had married another man to feed the boys and keep a roof over their head.”

“Oh, Book,” Nile sighed sadly. “That must have been so hard.”

“I was never angry at her for it. They got word saying I had deserted and was hung. It’s not like she expected me to show up. She died in childbirth. Mathieu, my eldest, joined the Orleanists and died fighting in the July revolutions in 1830. He was such a warrior and protector. He had been so angry at me for leaving the family, for leaving their mother. He blamed me for her death.”

“You aren't to blame for her death,” she reminded him. “You know that right?”

“I committed the forgeries that got me convicted and then drafted, which left them without a husband and father, which in turn forced her to remarry and then meet her fate. I can see how he would have thought that. And some days, it doesn’t feel too far from the truth.” He shrugged. “I made mistakes all the same. But Mathieu would at least argue with me about it. Lucien, my second son, drifted away. Severed himself from me in anger after I revealed to them I didn’t know why I couldn’t die. It had been over a year since I’d talked to him when I heard the news he’d died as a worker in an iron factory accident.”

This time, Nile could only tilt her head back to look up at that sky as a few tears escaped on his behalf. How much pain could one man suffer before it broke him completely? How much grief and regret could one sustain without the relief of a promised death?

“Jean Pierre, you know of. All three of them hated me for denying them the immortality I’d found. It killed me to have them think I wouldn’t give them all the centuries I’ve lived, plus the ones to come if I knew how. Instead, they all died thinking I was a selfish, greedy man who abandoned their family and then denied them life.”

Booker’s head bent forward, wilting under the weight of the burden he still carried. Unable to just sit there, Nile rose up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her torso to his back as if to shield him. Her arms crossed over the front of his chest and she could feel his own tears dripping onto her skin.

He sniffed miserably. “And even after all that, I can’t be angry at them. I loved them so much and I still miss them.”

“Of course you do, Bast. And it’s okay to love them just as much as you felt hurt by their actions. The two aren’t exclusive. I’m so sorry that you’ve been feeling all this the past few days.”

His large hands reached up to rest over her forearms, taking comfort from their touch. “I think it hit me hard this year since I’m back with family. And I felt guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“The weeks leading up to Jean Pierre’s death anniversary, are usually consumed by my memories and regrets and mourning. This year, I had been enjoying games and runs with Joe, and exploring cities with you and all these other things and it scared me. It was like I was betraying my family or I was forgetting them. I didn’t handle it well. I fell back into the grief even harder. I let it swallow me, almost as penance for forgetting.”

He turned to look up at her and as her hand gently cradled his bearded face and directed his gaze to hers. “Healing is not the same as forgetting. Do not punish yourself for stepping back into life. Healing and still loving and missing your family aren’t mutually exclusive either, Bast.”

Booker nodded in agreement though obviously still struggling with accepting the idea. “I’m gonna have a session with my therapist tomorrow to work through some of it.”

Nile smiled, her thumb rubbing comfortingly against his cheek. “Thank you for sharing this with me, as hard as it was. It helped me to walk in your shoes a bit. I’m sorry I pushed and didn’t allow you the space or time to grieve as you needed. It was inconsiderate and intrusive of me.”

Booker shook his head. “I’m glad you pushed. I needed to be pulled out of it. I’m sorry for what you saw from me. Not just in the bar or when we fought, but the past few days of closing off from you all. I will work on reaching out.”

“Alright,” Nile nodded. She clambered to her feet and used her weight to heft him up as well. “What can I do? What do you need? If you need time alone, consider me gone. You want to watch movies and consume our weight in junk food, I’m in. Want to build a blanket fort and be miserable together? I’m a certified professional fort builder. You call the shots, Bast.”

Booker paused, looking at her hands in his. He was still sad, still mourning, and still trying to heal, but he felt lighter than he had in the past few days. Grinning, he dropped her hands and removed his shirt, squaring off with her with his fists raised defensively.

“Let’s see how much Andy taught you.”

**Author's Note:**

> -So, ive been wanting to do a series for a while where Andy teaches Nile new fighting styles (or old ones) ever since reading about the 13 different martial arts used in the battle choreography of the movie. thus the 'sparring with andy' series came to mind. i also wanted to see more between them as friends, sisters, and a teacher student aspect rolled into one, seeing Andy mentor Nile.
> 
> -my father took Jeet Kun Do and loved it, and would demonstrate to us all the time as kids. I took a Korean art called Tang Soo Do as a kid, and i currently participate in a Filipino kickboxing art called Yaw-Yan as well as Escrima, so the idea of getting to explore different martial arts in an old guard story was super interesting to me. i found the research on this martial art interesting.
> 
> -i wanted to flesh out the rest of Booker's family in this. we hear about his youngest son's death in the movie and that generally his three sons hated him for his immortality from the comics. But when i realized that he would have witnessed his wife and other two son's deaths, i imagined what those would be from and did some internet searching since im shit at history. the revolutions that France went through were big and i could picture one of his sons fighting and dying in that. The industrial revolution was around this century as well, so the iron factory idea was a thing too when i read about the work factories and the conditions it subjected its employees to. 
> 
> -i have another sparring with andy story in the works, but idk if it will get out before a few of the other ideas i have so TBD.
> 
> -as ive said before, booker and nile are endgame for me, but i dont mind taking my time getting there right now. he's still working through shit and nile is learning her new family in general. but thats why i tagged it as Booker/Nile. if you look closely, Andy is already suspecting it LOL.   
> in my series they havent gotten to a big fight yet, so it was interesting to write an argument between them.


End file.
